


The Roaming Summer Party

by RedHorse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Falling In Love, Friendship, Grief, Growing Up, Happy Ending, M/M, Moving On, Oblivious Pining, Post-War, Sort Of, Touch-Starved, a literal magical roaming party, fairy magic, fall-in-love-or-die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:41:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23264884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedHorse/pseuds/RedHorse
Summary: As far as anyone can tell, the ancient fairy magic behind The Roaming Summer Party will only be satisfied when Harry has everything he wants -- or possibly everything he needs; the runes aren't clear. There's also a small possibility that if the Party isn't satisfied by summer's end, it will disappear back into the fairy realm and take Harry along with it.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 36
Kudos: 85





	1. Do Not Drink From The Jug Of Unknown Origin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luxis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luxis/gifts).



> This idea came together for a drabble last month, and suddenly it seems like the exact project to comfort myself with during These Times. I rearranged it a little to fit a fic I promised to write for my fandom child, the precious, precocious and madly talented Luxis. I hope you enjoy it, my dear!
> 
> I plan to write this at a mad pace from now until it's complete. Hang in there friends.

No one knew exactly how to activate the magic of the Roaming Summer Party. Or at least, no human knew. But it was enough, apparently, for seven teenagers to linger in the graveyard after a funeral and, an hour later, fumble a bottle of wine so it shattered against a half-buried headstone, painting the almost-worn-away face of a cherub in shades of ruby and pink.

Maybe the crucial ingredient delivered that day to the graveyard was George, wielding the dark, unfocused power of a twinship severed. Though he stalked off before the service finished and long before the wine was inadvertently sacrificed, he did spat on the paving stones hemming the graveyard as he went. 

Or it could have been sparked when Luna pricked her thumb on the thorns in the bouquet she’d brought along to leave on the coffin. The tiny wound didn’t close for hours, so that she left a tiny trail of herself from the hedge where she’d gathered the brown, twisting brambles in the first place to the hallowed earth they broke to bury Fred, and in the hot, damp clasp of Ginny’s hand, and on Harry’s temple when she’d reached up to brush back his hair. 

Everyone who later heard the Party was invoked that day would assume it had to do with Harry — his general, overall exceptionalism. Hermione knew better, and even she would remember how he looked that day and wonder if the Party was the magical world’s last ditch effort to tether its Savior to Earth before he wasted away. 

The graveyard was old and small, reminding Harry oddly of the cemetery in Godric’s Hollow where he’d seen his parents’ graves, except there was nothing magical here, no Charms that hid messages from Muggle eyes. It was a sunny day, which didn’t align with what Harry had imagined when he’d been dreading this day. He’d expected to stand in a circle of people dressed in black cloaks, all holding aloft the slick domes of umbrellas against a ceaseless grey drizzle. 

Instead he was wearing jeans and an untucked button-down shirt, and the sun was unspeakably radiant. Birds sang and threw themselves onto the low limbs of the verdant trees sheltering the graveyard. 

They were six days into July, after a long and exhausting June full of rushed trials and Prophet headlines that nourished in Harry a swelling and constant urge to do violence. All that itchy rage was drained away by the past hour, though, and in its absence Harry found something worse, like he’d been hollowed-out and now, immaterial, he would be carried away by the next determined breeze as surely as an unwelcome and unanchored ghost. 

This general existential despair left Harry standing at Fred’s graveside long after the service. 

Hermione couldn’t determine the extent of his inner turmoil, but she could guess. He looked terribly gaunt and silent, standing there staring at the Charmed sod where upturned earth had been. Hermione hovered a few steps away, and behind her with their hands shoved in their pockets were Dean and Seamus, and behind them, Lavender with her arms around Parvati’s and Padma’s waists. 

“Harry,” Hermione said. She slid her hand into the nook of Harry’s elbow. She felt his trembling and the hard protrusion of his ribs against the back of her hand and wanted to cry, again, but her eyes — and her head, and her whole face really — were too swollen and used up from weeping what felt like nonstop, in the horrible anticipation of this day. 

Harry jerked his head up like he’d been roused from a dream by her touch, her voice. He swayed toward her and she propped him up. He was so much taller than her but it was still easy, like steadying a swaying reed. 

“Where’s Ron?” 

“With his family,” Hermione murmured, but the words felt strange to her, wrong. The three of them were the family, weren’t they? But when the Weasleys had left the graveyard they’d done it in a knot, crowded together with their heads bent forward, like a stand of stubborn flames in a stiff wind. It had been impossible to follow them. 

“I don’t want to go to another funeral, ever again.” Harry wiped his eyes with his wrist. Hermione noticed that he’d been biting his nails, and that even his hands looked thin. “But I’ll have to, won’t I?” 

Hermione worried her lip, but on the inside, where it wouldn’t show. “I reckon you will. But right now, Dean and Seamus have cheap Muggle wine.” 

Just under an hour later Harry was bent over his knees, quaking with laughter, and Hermione had found a few tears after all, she laughed so hard in turn. 

“Now, it’s Lav’s turn,” Dean said, smug in the aftermath of his success, and pointed at Lavender in command, a gesture that might have been more forceful if he could do more than just uncurl his index finger from around the plastic cup in his hand and aim it at Lavender. 

The scar slanting over Lavender’s eyebrow and down her cheek was still dark red and angry, but with her flushed cheeks and her sly smile, Harry was sure she’d never been lovelier. 

“This isn’t my natural hair color. I once flirted with Slughorn to get out of a disaster mark on a potion. This is the first time I’ve had Muggle wine, and it’s not so bad.” 

“Guessing either of the first two feels like a trap,” Dean said cautiously. “And this wine is perfectly horrid, but you’ve had three glasses.” 

“Are we calling these glasses?” Padma asked, frowning doubtfully at the small paper cup in her hand. Seamus had found a dusty, somewhat-squashed stack in the boot of his car to accompany the wine. 

Parvati squinted down at Lavender over the rims of a pair of smart half-moon spectacles Harry was sure he hadn’t seen before. “I know they’re _all_ true. She’s cheating.” 

Hermione gaped at Lavender, torn between disapproval and horror. “Not Slughorn?” 

Lavender inspected her fingernails. “All flirting took place at an appropriate distance. Well out of range.” 

“You can’t play the game in bad faith, Lav!” Parvati insisted. “It’s called Two Truths _and a Lie._ ” 

Lavender smiled coolly. “If that’s really what _all_ of you think, then you can _all_ drink.” Her grin sharpened. “It wasn’t just _once_. I got a lot of rubbish marks in Potions.” 

Padma made a retching sound and everyone else laughed again, including Harry; his abs were sore with it. It felt so much like crying, a cousin emotion, that same aftertaste of exhaustion, catharsis. 

“Okay there, Harry?” Seamus poked him in the ribs and then furrowed his brow and engaged in a more thorough examination of Harry’s prominent ribs. Harry yelped and batted his hands away. 

“Why are you so skinny?” Seamus demanded. 

Hermione made a strangled sound, but Seamus forged ahead before Harry’s smile could even fade. 

“It’s not fair! Depression’s just made _me_ fat!” 

Harry cocked his head thoughtfully, his arm still wound protectively around his middle. Seamus _had_ put on a few noticeable pounds. 

“It’s fine, Seamus,” Dean called, sitting with his back against a tree. He held what was left of their second bottle of wine aloft and waved it around in an unclear gesture. “It’s cute on you. Makes you even more huggable.” 

Seamus scoffed. Harry dissolved into what could only be described as giggles. Hermione let out a long, relieved breath. 

“Your turn, then, Finnigan,” she declared, eager to change the subject. 

Seamus blinked, then smiled slyly. 

“I’m huggable. I’m punchable. I’m fuckable.” 

Hermione found that Seamus was within arm’s reach, conveniently, so she pinched his arm. He jumped and his wine sloshed onto the front of his white t-shirt, which was clinging to his softer-than-remembered midsection, not that she was _noticing_. 

Parvati rolled her eyes. “This is not the way the game is played.” 

“Everyone can agree on the punchable aspect,” Dean said, with a troubled and faraway expression like he was contemplating a deep philosophical question. “The rest is either a truth or a lie depending who you ask. In my case the lie is clearly that you’re fuckable, as demonstrated by our sorry attempt in fifth year.” 

“Isn’t it the opposite of the point of the game if _no one_ drinks?” Hermione couldn’t help pointing out. 

“Seamus will drink,” said Lavender, “and get a boost to his ego, based on the way Harry’s ogling his arse.” 

Heads swiveled in Harry’s direction. Harry guiltily lifted his gaze from Seamus’ backside. 

“Harry!” Seamus gasped, delighted. 

Harry was too full of catharsis and bad wine to do anything but smile shyly back and shrug one shoulder. 

After a long pause, laughter consumed the group once more. Seamus tipped back the remaining contents of his paper cup, wiggling his lower half invitingly at Harry at the same time. 

Padma leaned towards Seamus and messily kissed his cheek, and he snatched her firmly around the waist, twisted his head and kissed her mouth. She was so surprised that the third bottle of wine sailed out of her hand and fell with a ring of shattering glass and a spray of red. 

“That was the last one!” Dean moaned, holding the second bottle, now mostly empty, against his chest like a newborn. 

Padma and Seamus were snogging in earnest, Hermione was pretending hard not to notice, Harry was watching with unabashed interest, and Lavender had yet to surface from the grips of hilarity, sliding slowly down the trunk of Dean’s tree to flop beside him and grope, still laughing, for the remaining wine while he squeaked indignantly and twisted away. 

Therefore, it was Parvati who heard the music first. 

The notes were very faint at first, almost indistinguishable from the ordinary hum of insects and rush of breeze. The change was that these natural notes gained a sudden deliberate rhythm, coalescing around the ring of friends and rising into a gentle crescendo, some hybrid of instrument and voice, all the small sounds of a summer night recomposed into a chorus. 

“Um, you guys,” Parvati murmured, slipping off her perch. 

“Oh, hey, where’d you get those?” Harry asked, looking at the row of earthenware jugs that had appeared in a row where she’d just been sitting. A scent wafted from them, oranges and hyacinth and the unmistakable sting of strong alcohol. 

“I didn’t,” Parvati said, feeling a tickle of premonition on the back of her neck. She looked up and sure enough, the stars were coming out in a hazy and totally unfamiliar pattern, winking with unnatural brightness, like the entire sky has been pulled down close enough to touch. 

“Oh, fuck,” breathed Padma, who had disentangled herself from Seamus, to his chagrin. She absently patted his head, pointing up. “A fairy sky.” 

Harry unnoticed, picked up one of the jugs and closed his eyes as he inhaled the intoxicating smell of its contents. 

“It’s an invitation,” Seamus said with forced calm. “That’s all. If we don’t accept it, everything will be f—” 

“Harry, what are you doing?” Hermione exclaimed, but it was too late. Of course Harry had picked up the mysterious jug of unknown origin and drank from it. 

He lowered the jug and blinked at her. His mouth was red like he’d just been aggressively kissed, and his pupils were huge. “Merlin, Hermione. You’ve got to try this stuff. It’s—” 

“Fairy wine,” Padma said grimly. 

Seamus rubbed his forehead and sighed. “Well, then,” he said in a resigned tone. “Invitation accepted. I guess we’re having a party.”


	2. Do Not Willingly Go Where You Might Be Ritually Murdered

“I can’t believe _Potter_ activated the Party,” Pansy huffed. She was sitting on the edge of an ottoman in the second-story sitting room with Daphne cross-legged on the floor in front of her. Pansy had been braiding, unbraiding, and re-braiding Daphne’s hair for twenty minutes. It was usually a soothing activity for her, but tonight she was particularly wound up, and her fingers were flying as fast now as they had been when they’d started.

Draco, sprawled on top of the rug in front of the cold fireplace with his chin in his hands, rolled his eyes. 

“What about it surprises you?” Daphne asked, blinking with sincere curiosity. “Doesn’t Potter do all kinds of unprecedented things?” 

Pansy tugged on Daphne’s braid and gave Draco a speaking look, their private _Potter-is-the-worst_ look, complete with a delicate shudder. Draco reluctantly smiled, and she winked and returned her attention to Daphne’s shiny brown curls, conscripting two more sections with her pinky fingers and an expert’s ease. 

“It’s just such a waste,” Pansy moaned. “A bunch of Gryffindors, really? Can they even _begin_ to appreciate ten-thousand-year-old wine?” 

“It isn’t just Gryffindors,” Draco said before Pansy could go on. The girls look at him with twin expressions of surprise, though their faces couldn’t have been more different. Pansy, all angles, from her straight chin-length bob to the red slant of her mouth, and Daphne, all curves and softness, her parted lips forming a near-perfect circle. 

Draco rolled onto his back so they wouldn’t see whatever his face was doing when he said, “Theo and Blaise say they’ve been.” He fixed his eyes on the elaborately-carved beams in the coffered ceiling, where a single, determined spider had apparently begun construction on a new web. 

Daphne gasped. Pansy snapped, “ _No_ ,” like Draco had just told her he was having Hermione Granger ‘round for dinner, or something equally farcical. 

The spider looked very small from this distance — just a speck, really. But if Draco squinted, he could see it moving cautiously down a length of silk of dubious structural integrity, the whole half-spun structure swaying slightly with the force of its own tiny body on the precarious journey. 

“It’s true,” Draco confirmed. 

“I thought the Party only collected the host’s friends,” Daphne said. Draco could _hear_ her frown. She was a fascinatingly emotional person for a girl who grew up as a Pureblood and then Sorted Slytherin House at wartime. She was so likely to burst into tears when teased or smile radiantly at the wrong people that all her Slytherin year-mates carefully guarded her to avoid an egregious social faux pas. Still, it was impossible to hold her own tendency to disgrace herself against her; she was too endearing. 

“It gives the host whatever guests he needs,” Pansy corrected. “Put your chin down.” 

Daphne must have obeyed, because her voice was a little quieter, a little lower, when she insisted, “But if _them_ , why not _us_?” Her lower lip was probably wobbling by now. Daphne hated to be left out. 

“I think it’s rather obvious in Draco’s and my case,” Pansy said gently. 

“Oh,” Daphne murmured. “Well, I suppose.” 

“But not in yours,” Pansy continued briskly. “You are a perfect angel who should be invited to all the parties, magical or otherwise.” 

“Pansy,” Daphne protested shyly, then sniffed. “I wouldn’t want to go without you, anyway.” 

She said it with such conviction Draco winced in secondhand embarrassment. The spider had made it to the far end of its self-imposed tightrope, and Draco felt his chest expand slightly with relief. 

“An angel, as I said,” Pansy repeated, sounding a little breathless. Even Pansy, and even after all these years, didn’t entirely know what to do with Daphne. “I’m all done with you. Scoot. Your scalp will be sore if this continues. Draco, come. You’re next.” 

Draco sat up with a long-suffering sigh, leaning on his knees. “ _Must you_?” 

Pansy gave him an even look he knew better than to argue with. 

“Oh, curse-fire.” Daphne stood up. “Curse-fire” was one of those antiquated oaths that only very polite, elderly people used, like Draco’s great-great Aunt Wapheria Malfoy. “I’m late. I’m supposed to help Astoria with her Potions revising.” 

Draco slid onto the floor where Daphne had been, already warm from her body. 

He frowned up at Daphne as she reached for the Floo powder. “Isn’t Astoria some kind of Potions prodigy? Why would she need your help?” 

“She wants a human test subject,” Daphne said with a guileless smile and an easy shrug. “Bye!” She waved cheerily, her braid flipping over her shoulder as she strode through the Floo. 

“Do you think she was joking?” Draco asked after a moment’s silence, the fine particles of the Floo powder that hadn’t been needed for the magic drifting slowly to the hearth, sparkling faintly from the residual energy. 

“I don’t,” Pansy admitted. “I’ll check on her later.” 

Draco tipped his head back so he could grin at Pansy upside-down. She scowled back at him. 

“What?” 

“Oh, nothing. I’m just glad you have whatever excuse you need to — you know, _check on her later_.” 

Pansy pushed his head forward. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She seized his hair purposefully, and began braiding with more force than necessary. 

Draco sighed, then flinched. “Ow!” 

“Hold still,” she advised, and he gritted his teeth, blinked the water out of his eyes, and looked at the ceiling. 

The web was only anchored on one side. The silk was adhering well enough to the coffered beam, but not the material of the ceiling itself. The spider was motionless in the first few links of web still secured to the beam. Of course it was impossible to assess the posture of a dark fleck from so far away but Draco somehow gleaned that its legs were curled tight to its sides, defensive, frustrated. 

“So,” Pansy said in a clear, businesslike tone totally unlike what she’d used in Daphne’s presence. “How are you?” 

Draco enjoyed the way her long, lacquered nails scraped against his scalp, like the teeth of a giant comb. “I’m a free man, haven’t you heard? And my father let me have my vault, so I’m also very rich.” 

Pansy snorted and jerked the strands of hair even more tightly, so that Draco wondered if he would retain the ability to frown or close his eyes. 

“Your house is full of werewolf dung and foul magic, your father is in Azkaban, and your mother has taken up _knitting_. Also you’re a shut-in now.” 

“It’s very fashionable, being eccentric,” Draco said sullenly. He wasn’t sure whether he was defending himself or his mother. He lifted a hand to touch the braid at his temple, and Pansy easily transferred the hair she was holding into one hand so she could bat him away with the other. 

“No,” she snapped. “Don’t be sarcastic.” 

The spider had unfolded itself and was slowly navigating the webbing, which was pulsing like a curtain in a breeze, though Draco could detect no air moving in the room. Maybe all that was required to disturb a bit of spider silk was he and Pansy on the floor below, breathing bodies with busy pulses, and the rhythmic pulling of Pansy’s fingers as she finished off the braid. 

“I can’t talk about this,” Draco said eventually. The web suddenly pulled loose from the wooden beam in every place but one, which made it billow harder, and chased the spider straight back the way he’d come, beaten. 

“Well, when you’re ready.” Pansy laid her hands briefly on his shoulders, then pulled them away before it could be clear they were offered in comfort. 

“That will be never.” It was all well beyond Draco, really. He’d begun hating his father earlier than he could remember; love and hate twined together was the foundation of their relationship. This continued when Lucius joined the war, endangered Narcissa and then, in short order, Draco. Draco’s hate peaked when Lucius held Draco’s arm out himself for the Dark Mark—but then, he’d done that to save Draco’s life, so Draco loved him for it too. 

They hadn’t spoken to one another for three months before Lucius’ trial. And now Lucius was in Azkaban and they continued not speaking, and his mother was knitting. 

Draco scrambled to his feet, gaze fixed on the ceiling. “Of course,” he murmured as he drew his wand. “I should have thought of it sooner.” 

“Um,” said Pansy from the ottoman behind him. 

He gave his wand a three-pointed wave and incanted, and with a subtle shimmer, the bit of elf magic that was warding the ceilings from spiders and dust evaporated. 

He turned, beaming, to Pansy. “It was just charmed into the plaster, not the wood. It was probably one spell meant to treat the whole Manor, and most of the ceilings don’t have the beams . . .” He trailed off at Pansy’s blank look, recalling belatedly that he hadn’t mentioned the spider to her. 

Her expression slowly grew pitying, like he’d moved beyond the realm of eccentricity and firmly into madness. 

Draco was spared having to come up with something to say by an interruption in the form of faint wind chimes, and a cool breeze which wafted into the room from the suddenly-open glass doors leading to the veranda. 

“Not ominous at all,” Pansy said lowly. But then she got to her feet, eyes wide. “Do you think it’s—?” 

Draco, struck mute by the implications, quickly shook his head. 

Pansy hesitated, then nodded. “No, no. Of course you’re right. It’s just the wind.” 

The wind argued by blowing harder and the sound of chimes soared, almost like the ringing in Draco’s own ears in moments of alarm. The combination of terror and wonder inspired by the sound, by the way the wind deftly fingered his sleeve like a playful lover, and the scent of rose petals dispelled any doubt. 

The Party had extended an invitation. 

Pansy realized it in the same instant. Their eyes met. Hers were wide with sudden, fascinated delight. Draco’s were wide, and growing wider, with dismay. 

“You want to go!” he accused. 

Pansy got control of the emotions on her face, but it took her a moment. Draco crossed his arms and tried to ignore the way the music continued to rise, and the creak of the glass doors on their hinges as they eased wider, beckoning. 

“Of course I do!” she hissed. “It’s the _Party_. Only one generation in several even hears of one, let alone gets _invited_.” 

Draco was getting upset, and when his emotions ran high, they tended to run directly adverse to his reasonableness. 

“What about . . . ” he gestured violently but, it must also be said, vaguely in the direction of the doors and then the ceiling, and Pansy looked puzzled in response. “The Gryffindors!” he managed eventually, shouting now to be heard over the insistent music of the Party. The wind, which had turned warm in an effort at being alluring, wound around Draco’s legs and tugged. 

Pansy lifted her sharp chin. “I’ll teach them how to appreciate the wine, I suppose.” 

“Well, I’m not doing that,” Draco said, his voice getting louder and higher with every word. “You go! I’m staying here!” 

Now Pansy rolled her eyes. “I obviously can’t go without you. _You’re_ invited. I’m just your plus-one.” 

Draco was gripped by the strange urge to argue, not that _he_ was invited rather than both of them, but that the Party grasped the concept of a plus-one. However, it seemed evident that she was at least half right, because while the wind’s warm tugs around his calves turned to sharp jabs in the small of his back, and Draco flinched and staggered like a puppet on hidden strings, Pansy stood a few feet away, still and unmolested. 

“Pansy!” Draco said, voice quite loud and high now, but Pansy was acclimated to Draco in fits of temper and her only reaction was a slight twitch of her right eye. “The Party is tasked with what, giving Potter what he _needs_? Do you really want to deliver me to my own ritual _murder_?” 

“You’re being overly dramatic,” she snapped, then paused thoughtfully. “The most he’ll do is punch you a bit. Probably.” 

“ _Probably?!_ ” 

“It’s a small price to pay,” she decided, and started walking toward the doors. “Come on.” 

Draco held his ground until she paused in the doorway and looked over her shoulder. Draco could see that beyond her was not the sad ruin of the family’s once-famous gardens, but a grass-paved lane lined in smooth ivory-trunked trees laden with leaves so dark a green, they looked black in the night air. 

“Come along, Draco,” she said, low and velvety, and Draco could see that the Party had begun to seize her already. Her eyes were black and hard as onyx, which might have been a trick of the light, but the final proof was in what she said next. Pansy was manipulative, but she would never have uttered the words that next poured from her mouth. “Are you really going to pass up a chance to give Potter whatever he needs, even if what he needs is a bit of your blood?”


	3. Do Not Initiate Revelry In A Place And State Of Mourning

“Harry,” Hermione said. It was near midnight and they were lying on their backs watching the fairy realm’s strange, moving sky. The stars were like fireflies in a jar, held against a black velvet curtain. They coasted and veered and winked out and into view altogether.

“Yeah?” Harry squeezed her fingers. He was holding her hand, which was something that always seemed to happen when they were alone. She’d figured it out that last year of the war, when she was finally pushed far enough outside the perpetual self-consciousness of girlhood to see Harry through adult eyes. The way he leaned into even passing touch, and was never the first to pull back from a hug.

So she’d begun offering him more and more contact, vaguely worried it would be misinterpreted — if not by Harry, then possibly by Ron — but that never happened. Harry just became blatantly tactile, and Ron, observing them, caught her eye from time to time and smiled. Then he too began letting his body bump up against Harry’s, his big warm hands always clasping Harry’s bird-thin shoulders or tousling his hair.

Now she wasn’t sure any of it was for Harry’s sake. It was just the way they all were together. And maybe it eased the little gnawing worry Hermione had that if she and Ron weren’t vigilant, Harry would untether altogether and they’d wake up one day to find him gone. Each touch was like a little anchor, a plea:  _ here, with me? _

“I’m sorry for what I said earlier.”

She saw his smile in her peripheral vision. “Do you mean when you said I’d probably gotten us all killed?”

She’d meant when she said he couldn’t act like an impulsive  _kid_ anymore, and then they’d frozen, eyes locked and neither of them breathing.

_ I know that, _ he’d said with deathly calm.  _I’ve always known that. _

Hermione swallowed and squeezed his hand. He was being merciful, pretending not to know what she meant. He squeezed hers back, so they were both holding tight.

“It’s actually been amazing,” she said, though in the back of her mind she blamed the air and the wine and the music for the way her body felt like it could sink into the cool grass to be subsumed by the warm earth beneath, and she wouldn’t mind. Still, she felt it. “It’s been the best.”

She must have fallen asleep. And when she woke up, she was in her own bed.

Her own bed, in her childhood home, which was closed up because her parents weren’t the same after the mind magic, and they were still in their condo in Australia.

Hermione sat up so quickly she pulled a muscle in her arm. She rubbed her bicep as she tumbled out of the musty quilts to peer through the crack between the curtains at the unassuming residential streets, the familiar rows of houses she’d looked at so many mornings from this very perspective.

She got a hold of her wand, desperate to Disapparate and find Harry, when she realized she didn’t know where she’d find him. She couldn’t imagine what quirk of magic had thrown her back  _here_ , but if for Harry the equivalent was his Aunt and Uncle’s house — she blanched at the grim thought.

She knew their number, though. It was one of those things Hermione remembered. She didn’t remember everything, despite how Ron liked to tease her. Sometimes it seemed arbitrary, what her mind saw fit to file away and what it discarded, like the least understandable version of the “keep” and “purge” piles Mum used to implement to reorganize her clothing every spring.

A recipe for her aunt’s coffee toffee, which she’d made with her aunt once, when she was ten, and didn’t particularly like — keep.

The precise wand movement for a multilayered Parallel Concepts Charm in a research library — purge. (She had to look it up every time.)

The number for Harry’s awful relatives, to whom she preferred never to speak again — keep.

She worried the line wouldn’t be connected downstairs any longer, but when she picked up the receiver on its irregularly-coiled cord, on the kitchen wall where it had been mounted as long as she could remember, a dial tone droned in her ear.

Hermione punched in the numbers and leaned against the wall, tangling her fingers in the accordion of the cord.

“Hello?” asked a woman after three rings. Her tone was bright, almost bell-like. Maybe Hermione had gotten the number wrong after all.

“Yes,” Hermione said, and blinked. “I mean, hello. I’m looking for Harry Potter.”

The woman’s voice shifted and became familiar. “I’m happy to tell you that he isn’t here, and won’t be back.” 

“Well — it’s possible that he  _is_ actually. On accident. Could you, maybe, check?”

There was a long moment where all Hermione heard from Petunia Dursley was the harsh whisper of her breathing, then she said, “I will.”

The Dursley home phone must have been a cordless; Hermione heard the breathing as well as footsteps as Petunia navigated the stairs, quick and cautious, and a squeal and thud when she flung open the door to the spare bedroom.

“Thank God,” she huffed. “Not here. And when you see him, remind him he’s unwelcome, accidentally or otherwise.” She hung up.

Hermione wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or even more worried, but at least that left just one place to Apparate.

Ron came loping from the house within ten seconds of Hermione appearing outside the garden gate at the Burrow.

“Blimey,” he said, winding his long arms around her and pulling her close. “I’ve been worried as hell.”

She hugged him back, dizzy with the simple relief of being held against his big, lean body. “I’m sorry. You won’t believe me when I tell you. Unless . . .” She drew back enough to tilt her head and see his face, a thought giving her sudden hope. “Has Harry already told you?”

His puzzled expression told her what she needed to know, and her heart sank even before he spoke. “No, I haven’t seen Harry since the graveyard. I thought he was with you.”

*

Harry woke alone in the meadow where he’d fallen asleep beside Hermione. His fingers were still curved around the shape of hers, empty now. The sun was perfectly filtered through the clouds, warm on his face but gentle on his eyes when they opened. He stared in confusion at the silvery-blue daylight where wandering stars had been. It wasn’t morning, though; it had to be late afternoon. As proof, the moon was coming into view, a faint stamp on the blue fabric of the sky.

Probably most of what he remembered from the night before was a dream, he assumed, as he carefully raised himself onto his elbows. He didn’t know he was capable of sleeping through most of a day, outdoors at that, but maybe it had to do with his deepening sense — that there was something wrong with him. He suspected that between dying, and the cavity in his soul where the Horcrux had been, and the bleak way the future stretched out, starting with Auror training, his mind was no longer properly calibrated for life as he was expected to live it.

With these thoughts in mind he stood up and wandered in the direction he thought the graveyard had been, when he and Hermione had walked from there hand in hand the previous night. She couldn’t be far.

There was no graveyard. Harry thought, though, that the trees might be arranged as they had been amidst the old stones bearing carved names, and the new stone resting above the freshly spelled grass above Fred. The air was fragrant and there was a song in it that he hadn’t noticed ‘til he paused to listen. The stone wall was here too, but instead of a narrow road and the occasional Muggle car, he saw trees lining a grass lane. They were unnaturally uniform, those trees, and their dark leaves rustled as though in a breeze, but Harry felt no breeze stirring in the air.

A single figure appeared at the end of the lane and walked toward Harry.

He squinted, at first seeing only a silhouette. When the last of the sunlight sparked red on the crown of the figure’s head, Harry felt a jolt, half-hopeful and half-afraid, that he was seeing Fred somehow. Then the light spilled over the ragged remains of an ear and the slope of a cheek.

“George,” Harry murmured, and strode out to meet him, vaulting over the stone wall and breaking into a run from there. But when he reached George he tripped to a stop, hand hovering near George’s shoulder, suddenly uncertain.

George was dressed as Harry had seen him last, sort of. His suit was rumpled, his tie loose and askew. What looked like grass stains streaked his untucked shirt.

“Bloody hell, Harry,” George said, looking round. “You’ve actually done it. Hermione thought so, but I . . . “ He walked past Harry. At the real graveyard there’d been a gate, Harry thought. Here there was just a space between the stacked-stone posts.

Harry followed, flustered, strangely ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he blurted as George circled the spot where Fred’s grave should be.

George looked up, an eyebrow cocked, his playful smile making him look almost his old self. “For what, this time?”

“Well,” Harry said. “For. Throwing a party after your brother’s funeral, I guess.” He skidded his right toe over the grass. “It was an accident,” he added. 

George’s smile wavered. He looked down at the grass again. “I think it’s brilliant,” he said after a moment, giving Harry another jolt, this one more confused than the last. “Fred used to be a bit obsessed with the Party.”

“Really?” Harry asked. But in fact it was easy to imagine. Dangerous, forbidden, and fun was practically the twins’ motto.

George nodded. “A Ravenclaw witch made it the subject of her Arithmancy presentation, and argued that it was real, not a rumor. I don’t know if she was objectively convincing or if Fred just wanted to be convinced.” The twins had been advanced-placement in Arithmancy as third years, Harry remembered now. Spellmaking and Potions, their two passions, probably due to how much they could improvise, innovate.

“We tried setting it off at least twice a summer after that. But we were mostly guessing about the ritual.” He squatted down and pressed his palm flat against the earth. “Thanks for inviting me, even if you thought I’d be mad. I like seeing him here.”

Harry was baffled by at least three of the implications of what he’d just said. Most pressing — “You can see him?”

George nodded. “Here.” He reached for Harry with one hand, keeping the other buried in the grass. As soon as their hands were entangled, Harry knew what George meant. There was a shadow laying over everything around them, but between them the grass was bright, like something — someone — below was radiating more light than the earth could keep.

“Oh,” Harry breathed, staring in dismay.

George let go of him, and the light and shadow disappeared, Harry having no idea what it was he’d just been shown. Love, grief, magic? Decay? Maybe they were all part of one whole, which was the grimmest answer of all.

“If it’s just going to be you and me,” George said, standing, “then I’m going to get monstrously drunk, and you’ll tell no one if you happen to see me cry.”

Harry still hadn’t figured out how to answer _that_ when he had the peculiar feeling of vertigo, and realized it wasn’t his imagination that the world was slowly moving like a giant turntable. As it spun, the trees and grass and stone wall warped, like a tapestry being twisted, and then snapped taut again, generating a current of cold air.

They were in a rose garden, a perfectly semicircular garden of massive plants spilling out of their designated plots to twine together with one another. A slab of stone sat under an arbor, and upon it were three earthenware jugs. George picked one up, tipped it back, and laughed. Harry smiled slowly and joined him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your comments! I treasure them! ❤️


	4. Do Not Surrender To Violent Impulses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Still chipping away at this! I hope you are all fortunate enough to be well and safe, and if not, you have my warmest well-wishes. Hang in there.
> 
> (This chapter takes a bit of an angsty dive but fear not, all hurts will be comforted and all endings will be happy ones.)

_“Come along, Draco. Are you really going to pass up a chance to give Potter whatever he needs, even if what he needs is a bit of your blood?”_

Draco stared at Pansy for a long moment. He should probably be shocked, angry, or embarrassed, but instead he thought of the very beginning of the summer, when the heat came on fast and strong, like nature was getting vengeance for being tattered and scarred by the war. Draco had that damp, musty feeling all over his skin from the constant renewal of cooling charms. When he had followed his mother into the cavernous Wizengamot chamber under the Ministry, his chief emotion had at first been relief at the dry, cool air. 

They had been there for a terrible reason, of course, one he had been reminded of in short order, when the Wizengamot had come in and sat. Draco’s eyes had skimmed over the many empty seats, people killed in the war in service of one side or another, a few more of them in the holding cells that had been set up in the scrap of spare wizarding space the Unspeakables allegedly maintained for experiments. The _Prophet_ had advertised the installment of cells and prisoners there as a great mercy, a first step toward the justice system reforms promised by the new order. 

Then they had paraded in his father, and Draco had only seen that his father’s hair was loose, lank and tangled, before he had averted his eyes. 

Soaring columns framed the Wizengamot’s tiered seats, carved from ebony wood. They supported vast slabs of smooth dark granite carved to depict scenes of historic trials and battles. Some of them, especially the ones involving swarms of goblings, Draco had vaguely recalled learning of in History of Magic. A class he’d pretended to despise along with everyone else, when really he’d often enjoyed the reading. There had been a strange comfort in reading of evils and perils exacted and suffered by those that were long dead. 

“Lucius Malfoy,” the Chief Witch had intoned. Draco had closed his eyes, but then her nasal voice seemed to ricochet between his ears as she had read the long list of charges, so he had opened them again. 

There had been dark tapestries hung here and there, fully obscuring some of the carved granite panels. The tapestries had not been hung at the same time; they had all been at least somewhat dusty, but others were more badly in need of cleaning than others. They had contained quotes from famous speeches stitched in looping thread. Reading them had helped drown out the spoken words in the chamber but Draco could not hold their meaning in his mind. He had always needed perfect quiet in order to read. 

Still, this strategy had lasted him until Potter came in. His name, when it had been announced, cut through the din of competing voices in Draco’s head like a lance. Draco had not intended to look at Potter, but he had done it anyway, unthinking. 

Potter had looked, then, as though when the war had ended for others it had in fact dragged on for Potter and continued to batter and starve him. Draco had already known from seeing him in the last year of the war that he had gotten dramatically taller than Draco was used to picturing him, though still not quite Draco’s height. He had looked rumpled in his simple dark robes of obvious quality, like someone had handed them to him but he hadn’t known quite how to put them on. There was a place on the side of his head where his hair had turned up sharply in a cowlick like he’d recently slept, but in an awkward position. Draco’s hand had curled on his thigh with the urge to smooth it. 

Draco had not only looked at Potter. Potter had looked back. 

Over the years when their eyes had locked, Draco had felt a variant of what he’d felt then, in the chamber, staring over the small wooden barrier, the tables containing the barristers, the odd little gate penning Potter onto a small daise from which witnesses gave their testimony. It had been anticipation of violence, a heady thrill, but not of the variety he had Potter had visited upon one another before, with one exception. 

In sixth year on the train Draco had felt it, the enormous satisfaction of getting his hands on Potter, of interrupting him physically. He’d seen stars when his boot had connected with Potter’s face that day. 

He did believe that what waited for him at the end of this lane was at least minor bloodshed, but Draco had sometimes craved violence in its various forms. He threw himself into arguments and never shrank from shouting what was vilest and most unforgivable. He was a good dueler when he launched his magic from a place of angry impulse, less so in a formal match where he was plagued by the need for forethought. But he didn’t anticipate firing of spells or words when he was brought to Potter. The last time he saw Potter, Draco had known that the embers of their old rivalry had flared back into a new kind of rancor, one that wouldn’t be sated by wands and hexes and venom-laced words, but only by feet and fists and teeth. This was the promise he ran toward now. 

The Party is in your head, just like it’s in Pansy’s, Draco thought. It was like being drunk; or more, the soaring high of certain potions that he rarely trusted himself with. 

And then before misgivings could coalesce into more, he and Pansy ducked into the dense tree cover at the end of the lane. Wide leaves trailed over their heads like cool palms checking for fever. 

A last stab of memory struck him. On the day of his father’s trial he had broken eye contact with Potter first. And then he’d steadfastly kept his gaze fixed on the hand-carved history beyond the Wizengamot’s tiered seating, trying to sort out whether there was some design in the arrangement of the tapestries, which had seemed to him to be hung here and there at random. One of the raggedest tapestries had been slightly off-kilter, revealing the edge of the carved panel behind it. Draco had seen the shape of a human figure drawn there in the stone. The figure had stumbled back and lay on its elbows, its lower half hidden by the tapestry, its face controted into an expression of horror. Some sort of weapon had descended toward this one visible victim, a massive angular hammer perhaps, with a slightly-curved handle that had disappeared under the dark weave of the tapestry. 

Later he’d realize it wasn’t a hammer, but a portion of a limb. Resembling that of a horse, but oversized, because it belonged to a Centaur. Binns had never lectured on the near-eradication of the Centaurs centuries before, but there had been a book about it in the library at home. He’d curled beside a window and read by Lumos, and then by the blooming light of dawn, the doors snugly closed so he would not be disturbed by Narcissa’s weeping. 

The Party was presently in a clearing and spilling over with guests. The crowds didn’t shock Draco, really; he’d always known Potter liked an audience. Apparently he _needed_ one too. Draco wanted to roll his eyes at the thought, but he was very busy scanning the crowd, skimming over faces familiar and unfamiliar, lingering on the turned backs of male bodies that might be, only to dismiss them in less than a moment. When he saw Potter — from any angle, any scrap of him — he would know in an instant, he was sure. 

Draco stared over the heads of the trio clustered at the fringe of the Party where he and Pansy had come out to the trees. He barely registered them as two sixth-year Hufflepuffs and an older Slytherin whose name he barely remembered, four or five years ahead of them in school at least. And then his gaze caught on Potter. All of him, all at once, unmistakable. 

He sat apart from the throngs of guests. He leaned against a low stone wall with his arm slung over it, alone except for the witch beside him who Draco distantly recognized as one of the Patil twins. Potter had his legs stretched out in front of him. They looked too long for him, and his shoulders broader than they should be. At the trial, just weeks ago, he was gaunt and angular. All dark hair and bright eyes and lips and carved bone. 

Now, though, he looked like he’d never known anything but perfect abundance. Draco recalled that an aspect of the Party was physical healing; supposedly a host had once regrown a severed hand. Absolute physical robustness left Potter alarmingly vivid, the healthy color in his face made his eyes more luminous than anything else in the verdant clearing. What was exactly as it had always been, though, was the liquid energy that seized him and put him on his feet. That unconscious, economic grace. Draco felt like he was watching a cat — a very large cat, intent on malice, walking Draco’s way. 

At the trial Draco had known — _more_ , he’d been, nonsensically, _certain_ — that if they saw one another again anywhere but across a courtroom, Potter would put his hands on Draco and hurt him, and Draco would not mind. 

Now the crowds parted. The music changed, rising in pitch like the trill of wind through a tunnel or rushing under an eave, but around then the sweet-smelling air was still. Maybe it wasn’t the music reaching a crescendo but only Draco’s ringing ears, his own magic flooding his body in lockstep with the adrenaline in his blood. He put away his wand and let his empty hands hang half-curled at his sides, ready to give Potter whatever he would take.


	5. Do Not Swim In Alien Waters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry for the delay. I hope this chapter can offer a pleasant distraction for you. I know that reading has been an ever more welcome escape for me in recent weeks.

After clinging to Ron for a few more moments, Hermione pulled back. They met one another’s eyes with twin expressions of worry, and then Ron led her by the hand into the Burrow.

The funeral had brought all the Weasleys back to the Burrow over the past few days, but the house was quiet now, like perhaps they’d dispersed again. Hermione almost wanted to apologize on Harry’s behalf, that he’d had the nerve to get himself into trouble when Ron should be mourning his brother, but an instant later she chastised herself for the passing thought. Harry hadn’t done anything on purpose. And it wasn’t fair to begrudge him his boldness and impulsivity now that, in a postwar world, they were no longer convenient. 

“Here,” Ron said, pulling out a chair for her at the kitchen table. There was an unmanned scrub brush churning busily away at a pot in the sink, wreathed in bubbles, but they appeared to be alone otherwise. Ron turned a second chair around so that he was straddling it backward, leaning against the back, and picked her hand up again. “Now, start at the beginning. What happened?” 

Hermione stumbled a bit at the beginning. She wondered if the commencement of the Party counted as desecration of various graves, but Ron didn’t seem horrified, only a little wistful. He smiled at a few of the sillier moments, gasped at the parts where the Party's elements revealed themselves, and then turned wistful again when she summarized her night stargazing with Harry in broad strokes. 

“I remember Fred and George trying to start the Party every summer.” 

Hermione was surprised, but only for a moment. This must be another aspect of wizarding culture that had alluded her, a combination of being Muggle-born and then spending her formative years learning arcane magic better suited to warfare than teenage shenanigans. She pushed back the wave of bittersweet feeling and squeezed Ron’s hand. 

“Did they ever come close?” 

“Oh, it’s an all or nothing sort of magic, you know?” Ron said seriously, but he caught her eye and winked to let her know he hadn’t missed the fact she was teasing. “They never managed it. I don’t know if Fred would be thrilled or furious to hear that Harry did.” 

Hermione glanced up at the ceiling inadvertently, like someone might overhear them from upstairs. “Is George here?” 

Ron shook his head, setting his chin on his arm over the chairback, his eyes falling from hers. 

“Any chance you know where Seamus and Dean are staying? Seamus seemed to know a lot about it. So did the Patils.” In hindsight maybe Hermione should have owled them all by now. “Or maybe we should go back to the cemetery?” 

Ron frowned but didn’t look up. His thumb ghosted over hers. 

“Actually . . . you shouldn’t worry about this,” she said hastily. “I’ll find him. I’m sure it’s — I’m sure I’ll find him and we’ll all laugh about how I got worried and c-called his Aunt and . . . “ 

Ron looked up sharply, took in her expression, and shook his head, hurrying out of his chair so he could kneel in front of her and hold both of her hands instead of one. 

“No. Don’t be silly. I’m fine. We’ll find him together.” He kissed her forehead. Hermione nodded and sniffed, trying to rein herself in. 

“Is his Aunt still horrible?” 

Hermione was startled into a laugh, then she groaned. “ _Yes._ ” 

A clatter from outside interrupted them a moment before the kitchen door swung open. Hermione blinked at the vision of Molly Weasley in outright, dirt-streaked disarray, wearing Wellingtons, muddy gardening gloves, a straw brimmed hat -- and with a spade resting on her shoulder. 

Her eyes widened very slightly at the sight of her youngest son kneeling on the floor at his girlfriend’s side, but she didn’t remark. 

“Good morning, Mrs. — um, Molly,” Hermione managed, barely recalling herself. “You’ve been working in the garden then?” 

“Indeed,” Molly said, flatly, not like the anxious-to-please hostess Hermione had always known, even in the days between Fred’s death and today. Then her severe expression rearranged itself into a tired smile. “Are you hungry? Is there anything you need?” 

It never occurred to Hermione to burden Molly with an honest answer to that question. She smiled and shook her head. 

Up until a few months ago, telling Molly Weasley there was nothing she could do for you was like throwing down a gauntlet, sparking in Molly a deeply personal need to prove you wrong. 

Now she just looked relieved. “Alright then. Make yourself at home.” And out she went again 

Hermione and Ron’s eyes met. His mouth twisted up on one side in a rueful smile. “She’ll be okay,” he said firmly. “And Harry will too.” 

* 

An hour later, they’d rounded up everyone who’d been at the Party the night before. 

(Except, of course, for Harry himself.) 

Dean and Seamus came first, and had eaten most of a loaf of fruitcake by the time the Patil twins arrived. Carbohydrates were not in short supply. Baked goods were heaped on the kitchen table, proof that bringing food to bereaved families was a custom that transcended magical and Muggle culture. 

Parvati marched through the Floo with two armloads of books. Hermione sat up in her chair, helplessly interested. Her school years with Padma had been somewhat strained — Hermione had never been shunned by her dormmates outright, but there was definitely an inner circle among the Gryffindor girls as a whole that she’d never come close to penetrating. 

It had never occurred to her that Parvati was such an academic, until she spread the books she’d been carrying over the low table by the fire and relayed the four primary theories of fairy realm permeability with an expert’s ease. Of course, Hermione had known Parvati was a Ravenclaw, but she’d thought she might come from the confusedly dreamy contingent, not the rational one. She was pleased to be proven wrong, and before long she inserted herself beside Parvati and they were animatedly discussing the most likely of the theories based on their observations of the Party the night before. 

“Of course,” Hermione admitted, “I don’t know that I was really objective. There was definitely something about it that — affected me.” 

“Tha’d be the wine, righ’?” Seamus inquired snidely around a mouthful of half-masticated fruitcake. 

Repulsed, Hermione wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think it was _only_ the wine,” she muttered. She still couldn’t believe she’s drank from the jug just as copiously as everyone else. But at the time it hadn’t occurred to her to hesitate, which was the _exact_ point she was trying to make. 

Parvati threw an ink well at Seamus. He was too surprised to defend himself and it struck him right in the forehead. Fortunately the lid had been screwed on tight. Hermione looked at Parvati with a new level of admiration. 

“Only helpful words, please,” Parvati said, matter-of-fact, and opened another book. 

* 

“Are you going to leave me for Parvati?” Ron asked later when she was helping him make sandwiches for the crowd. Molly had appeared briefly, observed the guests with uncharacteristic silence, then trudged back out to the garden. 

Hermione laughed in surprise, not that Ron had noticed, but that he was enough his old self to make a joke about it. 

She leaned close with a conspiratorial air. “Maybe,” she murmured. Ron gasped in mock outrage then dashed at imaginary tears. They were both still snickering when they came back in with teetering sandwich piles on three plates, speckled like sparrow’s eggs. But when Parvati looked up, Hermione felt herself blush and avert her eyes, and Ron’s smiled turned pleased and incredulous, so she deliberately didn’t catch his eye either. 

“So, we know there have been four incarnations of the Party with reliable written accounts,” said Dean, whom Parvati had appointed secretary. He was making careful notes on a scroll Ron had found for him, writing on the reverse side of what appeared to be several years of Weasley household grocery lists. “Listed by host, we have on, the Aberdeen brothers, two, Thaddeus Kirkwood, three, Esmerelda Johnson” — he paused and grimaced along with the rest of them — “and four, Charlotte St. Augustine.” 

“We should divide up and study each account,” Hermione suggested. “Perhaps in pairs.” 

“Let’s do two groups. With you in one and me in the other, something important won’t be missed.” 

“Hey,” Ron started to object, but when Parvati and Hermione both looked at him patiently, he sighed. “Alright, fair enough. I want to be on Hermione’s team.” 

“Obviously,” said Parvati. “And you can have Seamus as well.” Neither Seamus, Ron, nor Hermione were sure how to take that pronouncement, but they rearranged themselves with two of the books on the end of the study closest to the window. Hermione saw a flash of light, and when she looked out in alarm, found that a burst of flame had erupted in the garden and already disappeared. 

Ron followed her eye and smiled sadly. “Mum must be after the gnomes. That’s a sure sign she’s at wit’s end. She only does it once a decade or so.” 

Hermione, quietly horrified, stuck her nose in the book she’d opened across her knees. 

* 

If it had been one hour or several, Harry couldn’t tell. Some time shortly after George arrived the world fell into the glittering darkness of night like Harry remembered from the night before, and he and George wandered from the cemetery to the clearing where Harry had fallen asleep with Hermione, then further still, to the edge of a pond, its surface silver like poured moonlight. 

George shed his shoes and socks. Harry had already done that the night before and had no need for them since; now he wondered absently where they were. The grass was always smooth and cool here, the stones smooth and comforting, the soil a dense cushion. 

They rolled up their trousers and waded out ankle-deep. The slope of the pond’s edge beneath the water was paved in tiny shells that seemed to have no sharp edges. A school of phosphorescent fish startled away from them and sped toward deeper water. Above, the stars pivoted and turned. 

“Ron says you died.” 

In a way, Harry was surprised by the question. In another way it felt exactly right. The music surged in his ears as though it was delighted by what it had spurred, and Harry’s pulse sped. 

“Or he thinks you did, anyway. Are you upset?” George looked up from the intense study he’d been making of his bare feet, not looking as though he’d be particularly sorry even if Harry _was_ upset. George’s eyes were steady and curious, and not for the first time, Harry noticed their curious color. An unremarkable medium-brown at first glance, but the closer you looked, the more you could pick out shades of amber and topaz. Harry thought his animagus would be some kind of cat. 

“I think I did,” Harry said quietly. “It’s hard to — to be sure.” Harry had a sense that death was one of those human terms, a word meant to label a concept that couldn’t be contained by just one syllable. _Death._ An illusion of finiteness, that word. 

“But you weren’t here, at least for a while,” George said. 

“Yes. I was gone for a while.” 

George nodded. “Then that’s like Fred. If Fred is dead, then you were dead. At least in that way. Did you . . . did you see anything?” 

The answer of course was _yes_ , and yet Harry hesitated. He knew what George was really asking, just as George seemed to understand Harry’s half-answer before. He didn’t know whether they’d stumbled upon the same wavelength somehow, or if the Party had placed them there, but for whatever reason, he knew that Fred’s question had nothing to do with Dumbledore or Voldemort or Horcruxes. It quite possibly had nothing to do with trains that came and went, and the universe-upending decision whether to step off the platform and board, or to stay. 

“I think there’s something else. Something more. I’m not sure about anything beyond that.” 

George kicked at the water, dropping his chin to his chest. The moonlight put patches of silver amongst the ruddy waves on the back of his head. Harry saw that the water reflected George’s face, and that’s what he was slapping his foot against: his own reflection and all it had come to mean to him now. 

“Do you think there are more fish where those came from?” Harry asked, just to get George’s attention, his stillness. He earned it, though George’s mouth was wrenched down in a frown, confused. 

“Come on,” Harry said. He reached out and grabbed George’s wrist to pull him deeper into the water. For a moment, George resisted, but then he followed with an uneasy laugh. 

“Seems a bit idiotic to swim in fairy waters,” he pointed out, sounding thrilled. Harry laughed. When they were up to their shoulders the bed of shells beneath them fell away and they had to break apart to swim. The water was warm and somewhat roiling around Harry’s calves, like there was a current, even though the surface was completely placid, like a sheet of glass. When Harry tried relaxing, he found that the warm current from below pressed him upward, made him buoyant. He stopped kicking and let it push him up, floating without effort on his back. 

George noticed and followed suit. They grinned at each other. 

Bubbles formed between them along with a distant rushing sound, like something was pelting toward the surface from the water below. But before surprise could turn to terror in Harry’s chest, a stoppered earthenware jug bobbed up between them. 

George laughed much harder than the look of relief on Harry’s face could possibly have warranted. He grasped the jug, opened it, and took a few long swallows. He passed it to Harry, giggling, and then he was laughing again, loud, open-mouthed. Harry drank, and smiled, and listened to George laugh. 

* 

Harry woke up curled on his side in the silver sand along the pond’s edge, like he’d washed up there. The sun was low, denoting late afternoon. George was gone. 

He felt a moment of pure panic, scrambling onto his hands and knees. His clothes were soft and dry. The sand was velvet under his knees and between his spread fingers. But he felt the acutest sense of danger, of imminent peril, he had since the last time he’d drawn his wand in battle. 

_My wand . . ._

And then, like someone had reached inside his mind and tidied up, the jagged edges of his emotions smoothed. His thoughts calmed. He got slowly to his feet and stretched. Then he strolled calmly back toward the clearing, wondering who might be waiting there.


	6. Do Not Contemplate Kisses While Asking For Punches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's some more of this! For those who commented, thank you so very much. Please know I cherish your feedback, even though answering is a bit outside my abilities in These Times. So is editing. So very sorry and if you find a totally egregious error, let me know and I'll fix it. Stay safe and well, but if you can't manage that, I wish you all the comfort you can find.

Draco watched Potter come toward him, his legs trembling with the effort of not running at him, charging him, meeting him halfway. The world seemed, also, to be tilting slightly to and fro, so that he could not quite keep his weight on the balls of his feet until he staggered into a wider stance. He felt Pansy brush against his sleeve and the sensation was magnified, like he could feel every thread in the fabric of his shirt rasp against every cell of that quarter-inch of skin. He still couldn’t look away from Potter, but he saw from the corner of his eye that she was not intervening, she was instead leaving his side to hug one of those immemorable Ravenclaws.

_That’s not like her_. That single clear and focused thought bobbed to the surface of Draco’s tumultuous mind, and then he _was_ distracted, sufficiently that he was taken by surprise when Potter reached him and closed his hands tightly over Draco’s biceps. 

Potter was still about an inch shorter than Draco. They’d both grown a bit. On reflex, Draco kicked Potter in the shin as hard as he could. Which wasn’t that hard because they were standing so close to one another. But of course Potter wasn’t nearly as tough as he pretended to be, so he sucked in a breath and winced like he’d been stabbed. His hands closed harder on Draco’s arms and it was Draco’s turn to growl out a complaint, even as Potter jerked their bodies closer together, and then the world tilted again and this time, Draco was too entangled with Potter to regather his balance. They both fell hard into the ground, Potter mostly on top of Draco, his knee in Draco’s thigh. He tried to hold onto Draco’s arms, too, but one of them landed beneath their combined weight, and sprang loose. Panting, Draco took advantage of that break in Potter’s hold and pulled away. In the process the arm still caught in the vice of Potter’s hand twisted horribly, and Draco let out an undignified howl. 

No one in the clearing paid their ruckus any mind, Draco noticed, taking in the surrounding averted faces in a mystified glance. It was like one of those dreams he’d had in Sixth Year that he was drowning, and all his Housemates were just a few feet away, chatting amongst themselves, when they could have saved him with an oustretched hand . . . 

Quite suddenly, Potter let him go. Draco scrambled out from beneath him even as Potter rolled away, angling himself up on one hip and one hand while Draco wound up on his hands and knees. They regarded one another from a few feet of distance. 

“Malfoy,” Potter said, disheveled and distinctly repentant-looking. That look on his face filled Draco’s mouth with a sour taste. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean to—" Then his eyes slowly narrowed and refilled with heat, if a more cogent sort than they’d held when he’d stalked across the clearing. Draco preferred this face, one capable of malice, over the regretful one. Immensely. “What the fuck are you doing here?” 

Draco rocked back on his heels and by habit lifted his hand to brush the fringe back from his eyes, forgetting he was wearing it long now, and also that it was still tightly contained by Pansy’s braid, despite his and Potter’s antics. He did feel the first sheen of sweat on the back of his wrist where it brushed his temple. He noticed that Potter’s eyes followed the movement of his hand, and then his gaze snagged on the top of Draco’s head and his expression twisted hideously like he had indigestion, angling his dark brows severely over his eyes. The expression made his jaw tight, and a terrible dimple appeared in his clenched cheek. 

Fucking Potter. 

Draco came to a belated realization, and before he could decide to speak, the observation came tumbling out of his mouth: “You’re not wearing those disgusting glasses.” 

Potter’s spiteful expression fell away again, and in its place was another unfortunate variation, this one bordering on self-conscious. Draco could not look away, it was too fascinating, too cringe-inducing, too awful, like watching someone cry or the ritual sacrifice of a small furry creature. 

“ _That’s_ what you . . . “ Potter tried, but couldn’t assemble the rest of the words, the blabbering idiot. Draco got to his feet, brushing at his clothing, but there was nothing dirtying them. There probably was some kind of soil beneath the plush layer of grass he’d been rolled about in, but apparently the fairly realm didn’t leave its mark on fine fabric so easily. That thought reminded him that his surroundings should be thrilling, abundant with clues to all sorts of ancient magical mysteries. Instead he had to deal with Potter. 

Potter. Draco stared down at him where he remained sprawled on the ground. At least he his glare was restored the longer he looked up at Draco. His long legs were stretched out, he was breathing hard, his chest expanding visibly under a plain white button-down which was taut around his torso and didn’t hide the swell of his biceps. The fabric was rucked up so Draco could see the top button of his trousers. He was dressed, Draco recalled, for a funeral. 

Draco remembered looking down at Potter on the train. The fire that imbued Draco in the moment before he’d raised his leg. It had possibly been better than sex, stepping on Potter’s face. 

For some reason the thought made him a little wobbly rather than high on remembered triumph. Draco hastily tucked his chin before Potter noticed, taking two slow backward steps. 

To distract himself, Draco chanced a quick glance around the clearing, and his mouth dropped open at what he found: nothing. Or at least, no one. He and Potter were alone. 

Draco jerked his head back around. “What did you do!” he snapped. Potter was getting to his feet, and paused with one knee raised and his hand braced upon it to peer up at Draco. 

“What did I . . . ?” He trailed off as he glanced around. “Oh, right. That happens.” 

“What—what do you mean ‘that’?” Draco was horrified to think that Pansy had been eaten by the Party, just to deprive Draco of reinforcements and ensure he would capitulate more easily to Potter’s violence. Not that Pansy had been particularly supportive in the moment of Potter’s initial charge, he reminded himself, irritated. But she would have come to her senses before too much blood was spilled, surely? 

Potter must have derived some of Draco’s thoughts from looking at him, which was not ideal. Worse was his borderline gentle tone when he said, “Hey, they’re all fine. The Party can kind of—split, I guess. But it will come back together before the end of the night.” He looked uncertain. “Probably. It has so far, anyway.” 

“Oh, thank you, Potter. Those words are _deeply_ comforting.” 

Potter’s awful dimple reappeared, but this time his lips were pulled back so Draco could see his gritted teeth. “You are so— _even now_ , you’re like— _this_.” He rubbed his hands through his hair, which made it looked like it had been pulled. “The sound of your voice makes me want to—” 

“Hit me?” Draco took an involuntary, half-step forward in anticipation. He didn’t put his arms in front of his face, which was stupid, but then how fast could Potter really swing? And even when he thought of it—that he was less offering his body for a fight and more offering it for a punch, or simply offering it, period—even when that awful realization struck him, it was with a sick lurch of want. 

Potter didn’t move. He sucked his lower lip between his teeth and let it go, reddened. “I don’t know.” 

“No?” Draco meant to sound challenging, but his voice was instead damnably soft. 

Potter shook his head. His hair moved too, against his cheek, against his shoulders. It had grown long. Had it been long at the trial? Draco thought back, but his memory was imperfect for all that it was searing and vivid. He could only recall Potter’s eyes, the carved-bone shape of his face, and his voice rising and falling as he testified and Draco’s stare shifted to the carvings and tapestries on the wall. 

“You don’t know why the Party brought me?” Draco lifted his chin to counteract the note of hesitation in his voice. 

But instead of off-center, Potter just looked confused. He blinked his enormous eyes dopily. “Why it brought you? You're the one who came looking for it!” 

Heat suffused Draco's face. “No, Potter! That’s not how it works.” 

“It’s not?” Potter looked horrified. “Then why—why the fuck would you be here?” His shock cleared to suspicion after a moment. “You’re making this up. I don’t believe you.” 

Draco belatedly realized that his arms were moving in a way Pansy had once described as “flailing,” and he forced them to stop. The result was that he was posed with his arms outstretched, standing too near Potter, and _that_ had to seem like an invitation . . . but again, as soon as he realized what he was doing, what he was _asking for_ , his want overpowered his disgust. 

It was a very curious sensation, to feel those two things commingled: desire and revulsion. The worst kind of stomach-knotting, heart-racing illness. He thought curiously that Potter seemed to be showing outward signs of the same symptoms. His face was again undergoing all that unflattering shifting. And then he lurched forward and wrapped his arms around Draco’s unguarded torso and pressed his face against Draco’s throat. 

Draco’s head cleared. It was a strange feeling. He didn’t know when it had ever happened to him before. His thoughts vanished and left him alone with the warm pressure of Potter’s body against his, shoulder to hip and, after Potter shuffled closer still and shoved one foot between Draco’s, thigh to thigh, calf to calf. Potter’s hair smelled of all the finest notes of fairy wine—not the sweetness or the tang of alcohol, but the earth and vines at its core. 

“Potter.” Draco’s own voice rang out in his empty head. He sounded dazed. He supposed having a clear head was the same thing as being dazed. “Are you hugging me?” 

Potter’s back flexed under his hands. Because Draco’s hands were on Potter’s back, running up and down the slope of his shoulderblades to the small of his back in alternating ellipses. He hadn’t realized it til now, too distracted by the press of Potter’s body and the warmth of Potter’s breath on his Adam’s apple. 

“I am,” Potter said quietly. He squeezed Draco tight for emphasis. “It’s not . . . it felt like . . . “ 

Draco understood. Even as his thoughts dropped back into his head one by one, he remained calm. The Party had led Draco here for whatever it was Potter would take, and what he would take at the moment was this. Draco had never been particularly generous, but he stood still and gave these things to Potter: the place Potter wanted to breathe at his throat; the narrow ribs Potter wanted to compress with his arms; and the hands wandering over Potter's back, which Potter seemed to like, considering when Draco paused, Potter squirmed very slightly until Draco began again. 

Presently, Draco noticed that the sky past Potter’s head was starry and moving. While considering that phenomenon with distant curiosity, Draco yawned. He yawned so widely his jaw cracked. He was overcome with a deep and startling tiredness. He sagged against Potter’s embrace. 

Potter lifted his head, bringing them practically nose to nose. That inch or two of height difference didn’t mean very much when they stood this near. The whirling stars were reflected in the bright green of Potter’s irises. “It’s okay,” he said quietly. “You’re just going.” 

If Draco lowered his head very slightly, they could have kissed. Instead his head sagged forward further, down to Potter’s shoulder. The brush of Potter’s hair on his faceand the weight of Potter’s hand on the back of his head were the last things Draco felt.


End file.
